they delivered an hour-long, incredibly dense and very boring power point, which i thought -- i was taking notes and thought, this isn't going to go over. it was about how the local committees designing bike paths were a manifestation of a decades-long conspiracy hatched by alleged 21 under the auspices of the united nations and involving democrats and republicans alike to impose communism on america by other means, and we got to the question period and i thought, well, somebody is going to peek up here and ask a critical question, and not a single person did. instead they added examples -- i think this is typical of a lot of pop uist right wing think can areow analogize the small business owner or home opener with the local zoning board,

extremely irritating people, zoning board. they try to tell you where you can put a window in your house, they tried to do that with me itch didn't like it. so they draw an analogy between the daily irritations and from government bureaucrats and rules and a u.n. conspiracy to remake american businesses, put in every house that are going to regulate the temperature for you. we couldn't figure out where that came from, and then vanessa went through the fox news transcript and there it was. many of the tea partyers that we talked to told us they watch fox news six to eight hours a day. so i think there was a big push about the time we were doing our interviews to get a certain scary image of environmentalism out there, and we can report it was working. >> all right. well, on that note, thank you for takenning.

it was a wonderful discussion, and -- [applause] there's a reception upstairs, and they'll be signing books, on the second floor here. [inaudible conversations] >> coming up next, elizabeth liz price foley talks about her book "tea party: three principles." >> i am delighted to introduce you to our last author, elizabeth price foley who has written book on at the tea party. you make the tea partyhahey

tea party is not a party, it's a movement. what's the distinction that is worth knowing about? >> guest: it's not a party in the sense that it has no interest in anoint something sort of central leader. it really is a movement that is defined by what i talk about in the book, three very clear, very old constitutional principles. so, you notice that the tea party, through the november 2010 elections and continuing to today, has been sort of ruthless about throwing its support behind candidates who who espoue these principles and don't care whether they have an r or d after the name and don't care if they're well-entrenched-well-funded incumbent republicans. tall acare about is getting their principles embraced by politicians. >> guest: in fact you say the media makes a mistake by thinking the tea party is nonexistent, because we department see an organized

movement, they're influence is waning, what are you finding? >> guest: i think the tea party is a live and well, live neglect suburbs. i've been to several tea party events in recent months, and even though they're not marching in the streets anymore, a lot of perhaps even dead because of or that. but when i talk to them, their response is, been there, done that. we don't want to march anymore. we're trying to mature as a movement. we're trying to spend our time wisely, and infiltrate the existing establishment, existing system, to get them to come our way. so, i do think come november a lot of people are going to be surprised. they'll show up in droves and a lot of them are going to be up pulling the lever not because they love mitt romney, who appears to be the nominee for the republicans, but because they're opposed to president barack obama's policies. so, you'll see a lot of antiobama votes just like you saw a lot of 0 antibush votes in 2008.

>> elizabeth foley lives in miami, constitutional law professor are. this is her third book and we'd like to involve you in the conversation, and we still have 25 minutes to too so. we'll put the phone numbers on the screen. >> so people understand your perspective, tell us more than i did about your yourself. >> guest: anytime a constitutional law professor by trade, and i have to tell you sometime around the spring-summer of 2009, if geoff public speeches to various groups, gray panthers, people like that. i hat a bunch of people coming up to me afterwards with pocket constitutions. i rarely see them outside of a law school building and i started seeing them all the team and these people were asking me intelligent questions about very specific clauses and it dawned on me about three months into that, these were the tea partyers i had been hearing about, and they just defy the

stereo type i had been reading about. so i wanted to do more research about who they really were and what made them tick. turns out they're a movement of constitutional conservatism and fiscal conservatism. not the consecutives of the reagan era, don't care about gay marriage or abortion, and that intrigued me that ordinary americans were finally interested in our constitution. >> host: you yourself have gone through a political journey in your lifetime. you talk about the fact you worked on capitol hill and worked for democrats. tell me about your own migration and thing think snag it was a met more sis. i went to law school after working on the hill. when i worked on the hill i did what my boss told me to do like most hill staffers, and i didn't think much about the constitution. i didn't think about whether or

not congress had the constitutional authority to enact the bills i was writing on behalf of my bosses, and then i went to law school and realized for the first time in my life that our federal congress doesn't have the power to pass any kind of law it wants. thought they did. and i graduated from a top tier university in this done there, and if i didn't know that, i bet a lot of other people didn't either. i took law school for me to realize that. and once you realize that, we have a constitution of limited and enumerated powers only you have to take that more seriously, and from there, still being someone who cared about liberty, rather than becoming a pure conservative, i decided i was more libertarian. >> host: the tea party, its critics suggest it's racist, and you spent time with people. what is your conclusion -- it's honored to generalize. >> guest: it's an umbrella organization.

that one of the biggest disservices to the tea party. here's a group that is demographically the same percentage of nonwhites as the general population in this country. most people don't realize that. the think they're disproportionalitily white. at it simply not true. they also -- when you look at what they care about, what they care about is limited government. they care about reigning -- running in unbridled power and spending. they're not motivated by race. yes, they're opposed to president obama's policies, very frustrated and angry at the bailout, bailout, and frustrated -- the straw that broke the camel's back was health care reform but their opposition wasn't based pop at the fact because the president was black, because they disagreed with that policy and believed it wasn't a constitutional exercise of power. so, i think the problem is, one of the reasons whyn't i wanted to write this book, we have been avoiding talking about the

substance of the tea party. eve e every other tea party book avoids that 300 potential gorilla in the room. i want to talk about the constitutional prims that the tea partyers care so much about and distracting based on race we avoid that more difficult conversation. >> host: let's take some calls for you. jocelyn in long island. you're on. good afternoon. are you there? >> caller: yes, i'm sorry, hello. first of all, want thank you for the programming this afternoon. i'm a regular listener or booktv and american history tv and i enjoy it. i want to talk about the tea party. i know you have spoken about the intellectual principles of the tea party, but i think you're speaking about the core policymakers, but then i feel there's also this group of followers that kind of, without any intellectual rigor, hear

these buzz words, constitutionalism, and small government and just kind of follow along and i think those are the people that are problemcratic with today's political lack of intellectual rigor in today's political arena. they don't know the issues. they don't know the specifics, and they're quite following along, and sarah palin is an example of that. people blindly follow these buzz word policies and don't know the specifics and i think that's really bring our political system down to an unfortunate level. >> guest: yeah. i mean, obvious live i would disagree with that. i don't know how many tea party events you have been to but the general format of the events -- i've been to a lot -- is that they are book clubs. they read the federalist papers, read the antifederalist papers, read volumes of letters by the founders, and more modern books such as mine, and so i think

they trial very hard to educate themselves, and i think they're probably better versed than most americans are on the constitution, and if you look at the polling data, the tea partyers are slightly better educated than the average americans soor dealing more in stereotypes than annual yates. >> host: next, call from carl from yonk cers. you're on. >> caller: miss foley? >> host: go ahead. >> caller: i had a question for miss foley. if she believes there was a salient moment in the genesis of the tea party movement or did she feel that was an underground that goes farther back than the single event or a single ramification in the twist between left and right, old politics and new politics? it seems as if they've gone much ofheir spirit from, as you

say, from earlier constitutional precedents, earlier constitutional movements, but i also feel there must have been an event, perhaps in the last 10 or 15 years, that really struck the verve to create the movement as you have written or as it expresses itself today. any comments on that question, miss foley? >> guest: yeah. you make a lot of really good points. seems to me that the genesis was the bailouts which started at the end of the bush administration, and you saw some of the angst building thirds him, and then president obama took office, and then we had three or four more 100 plus billion dollar bailouts that added fuel to the fire. i think that all of that was sort of building up the momentum of the tea party.

it became a tea party when rick santelli, the cnbc reporter, was on the floor of the chicago mercantile exchange, and he started ranting and raving about how we're bailing out the losers mortgages and then all the traders behind him erupted in cheers, and a couple weeks after that we had our first sort of tax day tea partiesque rally. so i don't think it was one thing. i think this concern about the loss of the constitution, the erosion of the constitution, has been around for a long time. frankly, it's been around since the battle over the bank of the united states in the late 1700s. >> since the big rally on the mall, what happened to him? >> guest: i mentioned him previously twice, but i think he was bun of the organizers behind one of the big rally, the largest one in the mall in washington, dc. and i think that he is one of

many sort of right of center commentators who are kind of interested in the tea party and continue to give them some air time, and a little bit more play than the mainstream media. he is not the father of the tea party, and between, if you talk to tea partyers, they don't want a father. they don't want a central leader. they want to be grassroots and disbursed and they want to stay out of formal politics. >> host: next up is tina in texas. >> caller: hi, how are you doing? i think i can articulate my thoughts clearly. first point is, as a person of color growing up in the 60s, seeing first hand integration and having to go through some of the oppression, and the issues, as i listen to the tea partyers, they remind me of that era, and even though it's wrapped up in intellectual conversation about the concerns of constitution, it seems to me as a person of

color, if i live in a tea party world, i would not have rights, and it would be rationalized in terms of my inability to compete, if you will. and i frankly find it disturbing, even more so, as i keep hearing people say, we're not about bigotry or hate. but yet everything you see displayed by them says the opposite... very intelligent people come up as a person of color there are huge symbols of color i don't believe them. >> host: thanks, tina. i think that's unfortunate. i wish he would attend a tea party event. you'd be hope welcome with open arms. there's nothing racist. and about the principles they espouse. there is nothing about limited government would keep you from

achieving. there is nothing about defending u.s. sovereignty that would keep you from achieving a nothing about constitutional rationalism that would keep you from achieving. he's our american principles, not by people working people are purple people are polkadotted people. they're american principles about our constitution that come from our constitution. i'm sorry you feel that way, but i think you're misinformed. i don't think it ever attended a tea party event in if you have a don't think you feel that way. post the next is michael in seattle. >> caller: professor foley, i would like to ask you three quick questions. first of all, who is a better president, clinton or bush? and wouldn't you agree facing these record $1.3 trillion deficit is because president bush was by far the most fiscally irresponsible president ever? let's have a quick review. when president clinton came into office he inherited 293 billion

raise taxes and left a record $5.6 trillion project that surplus and president bush squandered the entire surplus with $2 trillion of irresponsible budget busting tax cut into unpaid wars, even a staunch conservative like joe scarborough concedes president bush has the worst fiscal track record of any president. did you vote for president bush? would you agree? >> guest: let's get a response from our guests. >> guest: if i like clinton or bush, the clinton batter. i think you're missing the point here, and a tea party again is not republican. i personally don't consider myself to be a republican. i think most are independent. some are republican because they are conservatives and republican is more likely conservatives and then the democrat party at this moment in history.

i am not here to defend the republican party and neither is tea party movement. i think you are confusing the are confusing republicanism a tea party is on. >> host: but many agree the analysis the college is made of the bush president? >> guest: i cannot tell you how many have been to rate their frail as arguably against president bush and his failure to carry the mantle of limited government as they did against president obama. i mean, they have no sympathy or wish to bring president bush back. >> host: what did you find out about the tea party and money? >> guest: i don't know much about tea party and money as most groups don't get any money. they are grassroots organizations. a bunch of national tea party groups you can google and see right-click and i have no idea where they get money from. frankly that is not the tea party. those are people raising money for their own groups. it's a bunch of grassroots organizations in neighborhood and they don't get money.

gop organizations that would like to bring them into a cross? >> guest: .i. know they get any super pack money. big national organizations have super packs are participating super packs. but they're just calling themselves tea party groups. they are not the tea party. the tea party as ordinary people living in your neighborhood. >> host: neck is regina and berkeley, california. >> caller: hi, how are you? i am enjoying your show. i wanted to -- ms. foley, some of the process that i've seen in my neighborhood appear to be angry, confrontational as well as angry. and i am wondering icy racist image as in their protests and i am wondering why that is.

and a smile, i would like to know, i tried to understand their issues and what they're about and i think he gave an excellent explanation of that today. but why do they not -- do they associate with the 99%? and if so -- if not, why not? 99% versus the 1%? of the 99% would be all the rest of the public is opposed to the 1% of wealthy people? >> guest: i assume that she party does not consider itself to be aligned with the 1% of the wealthiest americans because they are not in the top 1% of wealthy americans. i'm not sure what matters. >> host: have a angry computational? >> guest: the fact the constitution is disregarded their very angry at the policies implemented by the obama administrati.

so yes, a lot of angst and anger there. as there is on the other side of the isle that occupy wall street, which is a guest week get the 99%, 1% information from. there's a lot of anger amongst americans right now. they are focusing different places. across theological section right now. >> host: next is afraid to come upgraded, pennsylvania. >> caller: hi, yes, ma'am. doesn't it say that all men are created equal in the constitution? >> guest: declaration of independence actually. >> caller: anyway, nor does it say that the government is to make someone equal to everybody else. i mean, i am really tired of liberals and democrats, and

deadbeats pushing their so-called civil rights were pushing on other people's so-called civil rights. we are supposed to pay for schools, illegal immigrants. they never go to the bylaws of immigration saying that their automatic citizen. they always run to the equal rights and civil rights and staff. but if they go to the morals, they find out they really don't have the right of citizenship and staff. thank you. >> host: marcon at thank you. and his sentiment reflects the tea party issues. >> host: i have no idea what the heck he's talking about, but i would say i like civil rights. i think civil rights are great. everyone should be treated equally by the government and i think more importantly there's a government that wants to use taxing and spending power which

is an enumerated power to enact programs like medicare and social security, then great. we can have that debate in the arena of politics and political branches. but there's a difference between that and using power regulate interstate commerce and enforce people to buy commerce. there's serious constitutional differences between some of the things that have tried to be done by the obama administration today versus things in the past. a lot of people just been too brought of a brush with the tea party. they don't understand the tea parties concerns earlier cons to too small. they are subtle, but important people don't understand the constitution anymore. much less what they mean. how are we ever going to have a serious and important substantive discourse about what is right in what is wrong with this country unless we know these things? >> guest: unanimous view of the politicians back when the tea party you came in at 2010.

marco rubio been one of those. senator rubio is being -- names is a possible vice president pick from that romney. they see is that selection, what does that suggest? you talk about principles that are so important. how do you complement that romney's presidency and the comedic spectrogram? >> guest: marco rubio is the one the political scene. a lot of people don't know much about him. the tea party generally like sinister republicans generally. my senator from the state of florida has a nice story to tell. he came against all odds inserted rows up in the ranks of this country. disagree or her radio alger story. it's too early to tell whether he's going to add anything to romney candidacy or not. much less whether romney is going to actually pick him. the important thing is, is romney a tea party candidate? the surprising thing is if he's kind of a boring speaker, but if

you cannot taste it through speeches after the primaries and highlight the words he uses most often, uses words like founding fathers and constitution. so he's walking the walk and talking the talk in the tea party and that's beginning to resonate. his only problem is on many levels they don't really believe him. he is saying that they don't believe him. post another color named mark, this one from boston. >> caller: good evening, how are you. professor foley, since you're a constitution professor yourself, i've heard arius reports that the president's history and that capacity and also that he may have been an editor of harvard law review. what can you tell us about that possibility? >> guest: i do know a lot about a day. he was a senior tester chicago law school. it's not tenure-track it would

normally not be called a constitutional law professor. he is sort of morphing adjunct fester, someone who does a part-time while community organizer. whenever a character characterize president upon as a law scholar by any stretch of imagination. he went to moscow that many people go to law school and don't know much about the constitution either. you only take one course in moscow called constitutional law, a one semester course. if you don't study much after that, frankly don't know much why do people graduate from undergraduate. postcode this question or an e-mail who writes i hear a lot about the tea party in the news about the constitution related to fiscal mandates, bailouts, limited government can't do little or nothing about increasing encroachment of government on rights to privacy and free expression. am i correct in my inspection? >> guest: major encroachment to privacy right now, but that is not part of the contract from america. it may be phase two is the politically mature, and right

now they believe they have bigger fish to fry and not privacy. >> host: nexus of rain and video, missouri. lorraine, are you dare? >> guest: yes, i'm there. you have the last question. >> caller: just a comment. talking about the constitution and the tea party. the all mighty wind that talks about the constitution follows the constitution is ron paul in the tea party people are not behind ron paul. so for me, it is ron paul or no one. that is my comment. >> host: thanks so much. >> guest: ron paul and tea party. and the polling data early on he was getting a third of tea party support. that's dropped off over time. one of the reasons is one of the principles is unapologetic sovereignty. mr. paul has sort of interesting views u.s. sovereignty.

they don't align very well believe it or not what the tea party and makes them different from his son, randy paul on that. so it's not going to be the darling of the tea party. we should expect anyone. mr. paul al-aqsa tea party support, but over time he's not going to be the candidate. they are looking for someone else who might be electable. >> host: so as far as you can tell, the tea parties hereto say? >> guest: they will show up in november and will be part of our political scene well beyond 2012. >> host: the book we talk about, elizabeth foley's book is "the tea party: three principles" available wherever you buy your

>> history of consumer tourism in america. buying power comes from a term used of the league of women shoppers. use your buying power for justice in the idea behind the slogan was americans consume is a lot of goods and consumption is a powerful way of making a moral statement and in my book i try to extend not for the league of women shoppers in the 1930s and 40s throughout all of american history to argue that americans have consistently used buying power for political and moral and ethical purposes. contemporary described and not

assert as separates us other people and that is often considered as private and individual. history shows americans view consumption as is connected and asked other people, to the people who made the goods they buy, connecting us to other people who buy or don't buy through boycotting similar goods and i try to show americans have visited the concerned about tomorrow and pass of their shop. the tradition and consumer activism is as old as the american nation and indeed older. pictures are back to the run-up to the american revolution in the 1960s when not importation movement began and this is a move that led by columnists, particularly to get merchants not to import goods from great britain. one of the ways in which americans first to find

themselves as a nation rather than british columbia subjects as in the process of boycotting british goods and beginning to buy goods domestically produced. this is radically new kind of political movement and was one of the things that led to the formation of the american nation, probably the most important and famous event in this process as the boston tea party where british tea was stopped overboard by american columnist dirk and other colonists not to buy british goods. this is seen as a way of weakening reddish colonial power but also establishing a new national adversity. one of the things i find this american historians know about the american revolution and the not importation movement, but oftentimes what they i think about consumer division, the next turn to things that the montgomery bus boycott of the 1950s. it's a very discontinuous history. what i try to shows americans

have turned to consumer politics consistently from the american revolution through the 20th century to the present and one of the movements i look at is the movement by abolitionists in the 18 twentieths and was a movement called the free produce movement and the idea was people who oppose slavery needed to not like goods that were made by slaves in the argument made by adidas free produce abolitionists as purchasing slaves made goods was tantamount to hiring a save yourself. but they try to do is say there's no moral difference between being a slave owner and a consumer. essentially your support name the system of slavery. this was a movement never particularly large but had a big social impact in the other thing the group didn't was set up

stories and where they had free produce, good made by non-slave labor, free labor in their idea was as more and more americans but goes from free produce stores, slaveowners would have been content to switchover from hiring and purchasing human beings as slaves to purchasing free which favors for employment. the movement never succeeded. they were not economically successful, but i argue in my book they set an important precedent of not only the boycott should come back to the american revolution, but today what we call the baikal, to try to not only punish those who were doing things you don't like, but rewards those doing things you do like. the free produce stores for the first in human history have discovered that did that. for a lot of consumer as there is no difference between buying power and politicalow wa a kindl

power. not the only kind of political power, but they argued in a society, and other us, americans for not making goods for themselves. we were market-based society from the early 19th century. therefore when you purchase goods from your establishing relation. you didn't see the farmer who grew the week that she bought or the butter you use through the clothing he wore or eventually the technology that more and more americans are buying. even they didn't see them coming at a real real direct connection in the your morally responsible for the conditions in which they worked and this idea was repeated again and again through the 19th into the 20th century's and the idea here is if you define politics proudly is how we treat one another, the

kind of ethical systems that are important to us, that buying power was a form of political power. in the 20th century, consumer activists began to talk explicitly about the role of the government in protecting consumer rights and promoting the issues to consumers as a group in society. even before that, consumer hack it is some was deeply political arg appeared in my book i call consumer activism in american political tradition. largely unknown, but if you look, you see this as one of the most consistent threats or political activity. boycotts have two fundamental ideas. one is economic and the other is enemies and these are often related. one aspect of the boycott is to economically harmed those dealing with the boycotts via something wrong or immoral. so in the example of the

appellation is was to economically harms slaveowners. but if it wasn't to harm the economy as a whole because the abolitionists believed in these free-market ideas that if you give people incentives to do other things that they will do it. if you give slaveowners and incentives to hire other labor, free labor, but do it. consumers an incentive to buy free labor goods, they will do it and therefore this won't harm the economy. in fact, they argue will be a good thing because you'd have more wage earners in the economy, more money in the economy and in turn buy more goods and so forth. in general, the idea has been to harbor a particular segment of the economy on a temporary basis, but what ultimately in the longer and be good for the economy and even in those cases to drive the business into

bankruptcy. there was to get the business to change in some way. you could see extreme a particular business. via march, the attitude has been asked this person changes, will be happy to spend our money there. there's nothing personal in this. this is more a matter of ethics and morals. oftentimes the other side of boycotts is to raise consciousness about an issue. many other boycotts, the goal has been partly to have this economic impact, but often times to let american know that they have a connection to a moral issue. an example of that might be the united farmworkers boycott, which is very popular beacon in the late 1960s and the next decades thereafter. in 1971 there was an article

"the newor estimated more than 17 million americans were acting in solidarity with this boycott. and i think the idea of the boycott was so much to harm the grape and lettuce growers in california, but to raise awareness about the problems of micro-laborers were facing was very, very bad work conditions, unhealthy conditions and to get americans to be concerned about something that most people when you go into a grocery store, near great or lettuce looks beautiful. you don't think about connections between you and the people who grew those in the pesticides that may be harming them and their children. i think i was an example of a boycott that succeeded the economic level. it has made it much easier for people to get together across big distances and organize

boycotts and other forms of consumer movement. so if you look online, you can discover hundreds of boycotts going on as we speak. every year or two, there's a boycott that captures the american imagination sometimes for a brief period, other times for a longer period and it is the way americans continue to express their political views. >> on her recent visit to south carolina at the help of our local partner, tv took a look at cultural and literary history.

>> , -- elizabeth sudduth. today will be talking about the aerial collection of historical astronomy. we were fortunate to receive the collection of over 5300 books in 2011. robert ariail was a gentleman hornet south carolina who came to the university and was an english major from the time he was a third grader had this interest in astronomy, so he continued to buy more and more sophisticated power scopes. 50, 60 years later he has over 5300 books and over 200 telescopes and scientific instruments related to astronomy. this is the book that started it all. robert ariail uses a third grader in a school library that william tower alcott.

check it out so many times eventually he realized he needed to buy one and this is a well used, well loved, but by no means is the earliest book in the collection. the earliest book is a buckley added to the collection just busier and early 16th century textbook and was the major textbook on astronomy for about 125 years. mr. ariail deliberately collected star atlases and the firstar atlases alessandro piccolo meany's at list prior to the time of engraving produced a star at least on this one stated 1540 was produced by absolutely amazing. that is the first because it's

an observational astronomer had a great interest in his early star atlases as johannes bears dating from 1603 is an absolutely stunning outlets in which the engraving include drawings over them showing the astrological symbols that we all know what 17th century star atlas. the collection crews all of the other major early star atlases. this is johannes topol myers from 1742. you will notice his maps, again describing the system of a planet and color. these were important to robert ariail as he became the richest in how others perceived to have been, the history of scientific

understanding from his perspective as an observational astronomer. and this is a copy of john views his work, which is finished in the 1750s, but not published until 1986 on our copy has this title page, which is very rare. we are one of very few libraries in the world to have all of these early star atlases. the strength of the ariail collection as it relates to popular astronomy and observational astronomy. robert ariail been a member of the american association of star observers and enact good one at that. other strengths includes the work of the major observatory periodical publications and reflect telescopes and

scientific instruments as he came to restore telescopes as part of his work, he did a lot of research and published on all that clark and clark telescopes are a major part of this collection. we own a lot of material on alvin clarke and the other early makers. there is a history of an 18th century telescope and our copy has a wonderful foldout engraving on mine as well and then we also have the companion piece and museum holds the actual telescope and that's an example of something we've exhibited together. one of my favorite books is the mechanism of the heavens. mrs. mary somerville, 1831. she was an important observational astronomer and again, this is representative of

one of a number of books we have of women who have a great deal of influence in the field. the collection is still growing. -- ..